SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2014
9
AUSTRALIA
The Greek Orthodox Commu-
nity of Melbourne and Victo-
ria (GOCMV) was established
on 22 August 1897, in Mel-
bourne, when a number of
Greeks gathered to discuss
the issue and bring over a
priest from the Patriarchate
of Jerusalem for the religious
needs of themselves and those
Arab speaking Orthodox peo-
ple of the Victorian capital.
The idea of the establishment
of a Greek Community had
pre-existed since 1895, when
a letter with some money was
sent to the then Patriarch of
Jerusalem Gerassimos, for
sending a priest. The Greek-
born population of Victoria at
that time was approximately
200 and that of Melbourne,
probably less than 150.
In 1897, Dorotheos Bakalia-
ros, an Archimandrite, visited
Melbourne and Sydney and
assisted the Greek migrants
for a while with their Church
needs.
The members of the Greek
Community met again in
March 1898, elected a Com-
munity Council (CC) and
wrote a new letter to the Patri-
archate. This time their effort
was successful, the Patriarch
accepted their appeal and sent
Father Athanasios Kantopou-
los, who arrived in Melbourne
on 22 June 1898, whom the
members of the Greek com-
munity welcomed with "inde-
scribable joy", as the Commu-
nity Minutes inform us.
In September 1898 a General
Meeting (GM) decided unan-
imously to collect money to
buy an appropriate block of
land for erecting a Community
church which they should "put
under the protection of the
free corner of the Greek na-
tion". By July 1899 the money
collected was £125. The Com-
mittee negotiated the present
site of Evangelismos at £600
for which the collection was
paid, plus a loan provided by
the three executive members
of the committee, Grigorios
Matorikos, Alexandros Ma-
niakis and Antonios J. J. Le-
katsas. The foundation stone
of the church was laid on 19
December 1900 (6 December
with the Old Julian Calendar)
in the presence of local au-
thorities, and the church was
completed by 1902.
In 1902 a conflict had aris-
en between the Community
Council and the priest Father
Kantopoulos, who wanted to
register the church as prop-
erty of the Patriarchate of Je-
rusalem, making an alliance
with the Orthodox Arabic
speaking Syrians. The CC op-
posed this decisively. It called
a Special General Meeting
(SGM) in August 1902, passed
unanimously a Constitution,
named the Church of Greece
as the Community's spiritual
head and elected a board of
three trustees, Alexander Ma-
niakis, Antonios J. J. Lekatsas
and Grigorios Matorikos, and
declared the church as prop-
erty of the Greek Community
of Melbourne.
In 1906 the Community, after
a series of Bulgarian attacks
which caused many Greek
victims in Macedonia (under
Ottoman rule at the time), or-
ganised an appeal, collected
the amount of £187 and sent
it to the Greek minister for fi-
nance, with a letter stating "for
reorganisation and building a
well-trained army and navy
(...) to enable us in the near
future to be able to fight effec-
tively against our multiple en-
emies" (Community minutes).
In 1912, after the declara-
tion of the First Balkan War,
the Greek Community called
a public meeting, collected
money and sent to the Greek
Prime Minister Eleftherios
Venizelos £2,472 for the as-
sistance of the Greek national
struggle.
In 1916 the organisation
started celebrating the Greek
National Day of 25th of
March and in 1922 decided
to take steps to establish a
Greek afternoon school, which
started operating in Novem-
ber 1923 in the rooms of the
Ithacan Association ‘Ulysses’.
However, the Greek school
folded the following year. It
was not until 1929 that the
GOCMV established its own
Saturday school under the
guidance of an independent
school committee.
In March 1932 the Commu-
nity faced economic prob-
lems for the second time since
1921 but it managed to over-
come them in the end.
At the Annual General Meet-
ing in August 1934, Nikiforos
Lekatsas proposed that wom-
en be given the right of full
membership, however, the
new CC, with Angelos Lekat-
sas as its president, postponed
taking any decision for imple-
mentation of the proposal.
The Annual Community
Dance Grecian Ball, a very
important event in the social
calendar of the Greek Com-
munity in Melbourne, was
set up in 1936.
In September 1938 a Special
General Meeting voted for
the change of the title of the
Community to 'Greek Ortho-
dox Community of Melbourne
and Victoria'.
In February 1940 the two
Community schools were
amalgamated.
Full membership rights were
granted to women in the AGM
of August 1952.
In February 1952, at the on-
set of the Cold War, and a few
years after the Greek Civil
War, the Community Coun-
cil decided to dissolve its Ath-
letic team ‘Olympiakos’ be-
cause it had shown signs of
‘pro-Left tendencies’.
In September 1960, as a re-
sult of conflict with the Greek
Archdiocese of Australia, the
then president of the Greek
Orthodox Community of Mel-
bourne and Victoria, Dimitrios
Elefantis, and 10 councillors
of the Greek Community of
Adelaide were excommunicat-
ed. The abrogation of the ex-
communications by the Arch-
diocese came in May 1961.
In September 1961 the old
Greek Community Centre in
Lonsdale Street was launched.
Throughout the 1960s and
1970s there were attempts for
negotiations in order to solve
the ongoing Church dispute
in Australia, centred on the
issue of who was going to
have the upper hand in the
representation and the leader-
ship of the Greek Community
in the Antipodes.
In the 1970s the Greek Or-
thodox Community of Mel-
bourne and Victoria partici-
pated together with other
Greek community organisa-
tions in the Greek (Cultural)
Festival, which was run un-
der the auspices of the Greek
Consulate in Melbourne. The
Greek Festival was the pre
cursor of the Antipodes Fes-
tival, which was started by the
Community in 1987.
In September 1979 the edu-
cationalist Costas Yiamiadakis
proposed the establishment
of a Community day-school
but failed to get the support
of the majority at the Annual
General Meeting. The issue
of the establishment of a day
school preoccupied the mem-
bers of the Community for a
number of years.
In November 1987 the An-
nual General Meeting ap-
proved the purchase of the
land and buildings of the Pa-
rade College at Alphington
for establishing a Commu-
nity day-school, namely the
Alphington Grammar School.
In the early 1990s the Com-
munity faced huge financial
problems due to its large debt,
as a result of the loan for the
purchase and operation of the
school and the steep increas-
es of the interest rates. How-
ever, the board of the then
president of the Community,
George Fountas, managed to
get a loan by the National
Bank of Greece (4.75 million
dollars), guaranteed by the
Greek government. The loan,
which was never paid back,
managed to save the Com-
munity from bankruptcy.
The Greek government came
to the help of the Greek com-
munity again in the early
2000s, with another dona-
tion of 2.6 million dollars, in
order to support Alphington
Grammar School.
Bill Papastergiadis, the cur-
rent president, and his board
took over in the Greek Ortho-
dox Community of Melbourne
and Victoria, the oldest Greek
organisation in Australia, in
January 2008. Under their
leadership, amongst others,
the Community is able to of-
ficially launch tomorrow its
new 15-storey building at the
historical centre of Hellenism
in Melbourne, at the corner of
Lonsdale and Russel Street.
* Most of the information for
this article was drawn from
Christos N. Fifis ‘Brief Outline
of the History of the GOCMV’
as it appears on the website of
the Community.
The founding fathers of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria. L-R: Alexandros Maniakis,
Grigorios Matorikos and Antonis Lekatsas.
A brief history of the GOCMV
On the occasion of the unveiling of the new
Cultural Centre, Neos Kosmos presents the
story of the Greek Orthodox Community of
Melbourne and Victoria
“Full membership
rights were granted
to women in the
Annual General
Meeting of August
1952.”
“The Greek
government came
to the help of the
Greek Community
again in the early
2000s, with a
donation of 2.6
million dollars, in
order to support
Alphington
Grammar School.”
Evangelismos, the Annunciation of Our Lady in East Melbourne, is the first Greek Orthodox Church in Melbourne.
Greek school photo from 1931.